Fundamental social change involves two intertwined processes. On the one hand, it means shutting down the mechanisms that impose disparities in power and access to resources; on the other hand, it involves creating infrastructures that distribute resources and power according to a different logic, weaving a new social fabric.
While the movement for police abolition that burst into the public consciousness a month ago in Minneapolis has set new precedents for resistance, the mutual aid networks that have expanded around the world since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic point the way to a new model for social relations.
Food distribution at Woodbine, a social center in New York City.
The following report profiles three groups that coordinate mutual aid efforts in New York City—Woodbine, Take Back the Bronx, and Milk Crate Gardens—exploring their motivations and aspirations as well as the resources and forms of care they circulate.
This is the first installment in a series exploring mutual aid projects across the globe.
With politicians such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling for the people to engage in mutual aid in order to survive the COVID-19 crisis, those not previously familiar with the term might never guess it was coined by an anarchist scientist who advocated against central government.
Desde el levantamiento insurgente del pueblo en octubre de 2019 hemos vivido una revuelta constante en que ya no se tolera ni aguanta pasivamente las decisiones del estado que en nada contempla nuestros intereses, vemos también que el aparato represor hace esfuerzos por volver a criminalizar y encarcelar todas las formas de lucha, o por el contrario, aplacarlas con migajas: lo hemos visto con la creación de leyes que penalizan el uso de capucha, las barricadas, el corte de calle, o la inyección de dineros en ayudas sociales como paupérrimas cajas de comida y bonos.
Pero ha quedado en evidencia que sus medidas no bastan y menos aun pueden invisivilizar las aberraciones de este modelo de dominación las cuales se hacen más evidente en un contexto de crisis sanitaria. .
Son por estas razones que ahora más que nunca debemos estar al lado de quienes han sido encarcelados por enfrentarse con decisión a este sistema de injusticia y opresión y que arriesgan extensas condenas en los juicios que se aproximan.
Hoy estamos frente a una nueva etapa en cuanto a la prisión de lxs compañerxs de la revuelta, se van cumpliendo los plazos de investigación y se avecinan los juicios.
Algunxs ya han sido condenadxs mediante juicio abreviado. Hay compañerxs a lxs que se les pide más de veinte años de cárcel, dejando en evidencia el castigo ejemplificador que pretenden dar a la protesta social, y mientras tanto vemos cómo siguen cayendo personas por negarse a agonizar pasivamente, de hambre, de virus, de capitalismo.
Lxs presxs de la revuelta han sido judicializados como delincuentes comunes, no reconociendo su calidad de prisionerxs políticxs; abrazamos a todas y todos los prisioneros que por distintas causas se encuentran tras los muros.
Esta omisión del aparato estatal es una negación del caracter transgresor y político de las acciones por las cuales han sido perseguidos y acusados.
En este escenario represor y punitivo, la solidaridad y la exigencia de libertad de nuestrxs presxs políticxs de la revuelta se torna urgente y fundamental entendiendo que la solidaridad por sobretodo debe forjarse desde un quehacer revolucionario, que por una parte se manifieste en el apoyo directo que lxs presxs requieren pero que al mismo tiempo esté en concordancia con una práctica de lucha y trasformación social.
Es por esto que nuestro horizonte de lucha se situa en la fortaleza y consolidación de una movilización social que exija en las calles y en los distintos territorios la libertad de todxs lxs presxs políticxs y sea, a la vez, parte sustancial de las justas demandas y luchas de lxs oprimidxs
Es por esto que ante las condenas que busca el estado contra lxs presxs de la revuelta, hacemos un llamado de solidaridad nacional e internacional para exigir su inmediata libertad, con la certeza que la contundencia y persistencia de las expresiones de solidaridad, tanto dentro como fuera del país, son fundamentales en este camino de lucha que hemos ido trazando conjuntamente por la libertad de nuestrxs compañerxs. Extendemos este convocatoria apelando a las múltiples iniciativas y acciones solidarias que surgan desde cada territorio. ANTE LAS CONDENAS QUE BUSCA EL ESTADO SOLIDARIDAD ACTIVA EN TODOS LADOS¡¡¡ LIBERTAD A LXS PRESXS DE LA REVUELTA Y A TODXS LXS PRESXS POLÍTICOS¡¡¡ COORDINADORA 18 DE OCTUBRE.
In the face of a global resurgence of authoritarian far-right governments, policies and even social behaviour, there is a need to build an anti-facist strategy that pays special attention to the root causes of xenophobia, racism, misogyny.
A society where competition and the pursuit of individual wealth are promoted as the ultimate goals and values is bound to normalise inequality, because it feeds from it.
Opposing this normalisation is at the core of a clear anti-facist strategy. What are we fighting against? Who benefits from prejudice? And most importantly, what can we do about it?
A speaker from the Industrial Workers of the World Ireland Branch leads the discussion on Antifascism: Lessons for 2020.
Saturday 1st February at the Derry Radical Bookfair, Speakers Corner, Pilots Row Community Centre @ 3pm
Kropotkin is often heralded as the most important classical anarchist theorist. Bookchin–influenced heavily by Kropotkin– is one of the most seminal theorists in post-classical anarchist period of anarchism. Kropotkin and Bookchin advocate for very similar yet distinct prescriptions of a good society.
They have similarities of anti-statism, anti-capitalism, anti-hierarchical praxis more broadly, socialization and communalization of land, the means of production, distribution, and consumption, more specifically communist forms of distribution according to ability and need.
They even both emphasize the necessity of communal forms as well as an emphasis on technology and achieving a post scarcity society by organizing finitude in a way to make it so there is more than enough for everyone economically.
Despite Bookchin’s departure from anarchism towards the end of his life, communalism draws ”from anarchism” a “commitment to antistatism and confederalism, as well as its recognition that hierarchy is a basic problem that can be overcome only by a libertarian socialist society,” (Bookchin 2007).
Many of the most important substantial analyses of problems and solutions are consistent between classical anarcho communism of Kropotkin and the non-anarchist yet libertarian communist communalism of Bookchin–so many that there are more similarities between them than there are between Kropotkin and many neo-anarchists
For Kropotkin, anarchists ought to create anarchist specific organizations, organize federations of affinity groups for direct actions, build revolutionary communes, and participate in radical trade unionism.
Kropotkin prescribes worker internationals and refers to worker internationals as waging a “direct…battle of labor against capital- not through parliament but directly by the means that are generally available to all workers,” (Kropotkin 2014, 466).
Journalists are under attack globally for doing their jobs. Julian Assange is facing a 175 year sentence for publishing if extradited to the United States.
The Trump administration has gone from denigrating journalists as ‘enemies of the people’ to now criminalizing common practices in journalism that have long served the public interest.
WikiLeaks founder and editor Julian Assange’s extradition is being sought by the Trump administration for publishing US government documents which exposed war crimes and human rights abuses.
He is being held in maximum security HMP Belmarsh in London and faces a 175 years sentence if extradited.
There is a war on journalism – Julian Assange is at the centre of that war. If this precedent is set then what happens to Assange can happen to any journalist. Join director Ken Loach and filmmaker Suzie Gilbert for a discussion with Juan Passarelli about his new documentary
– The War on Journalism: The Case of Julian Assange “The Indictment of Julian Assange… is a threat to the press and the American People.”
Crew on Louise Michel, carrying migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean, seeking urgent assistance. 6 hours ago
Since 2014, more than 20,000 migrants and refugees have died at sea while trying to reach Europe from Africa [File: Reuters]
Optimized by JPEGmini 3.14.2.84235 0x32267fb4
A migrant rescue vessel, funded by British street artist Banksy, in the Mediterranean, says it is unable to move and needs urgent help after lending assistance to a boat in the Mediterranean that was carrying at least one dead person.
The German-flagged Louise Michel on Saturday said it was overcrowded and unable to move after encountering another boat attempting to cross the expanse dividing Europe and Africa with 130 people on board.
I’m not a religious person, or someone who sees messages written in clouds, but if I were, I might believe that Mother Nature is trying to tell President Donald Trump something right now. California is burning, a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 150 mph just blasted into the Louisiana coast, and nearly 180,000 are reported dead from a viral outbreak that is just a harbinger of what one scientist calls “a new pandemic era” driven in part by our changing climate and wanton destruction of ecosystems.
But on the eve of Trump’s big speech to accept the Republican nomination, if Mother Nature had a voice, I imagine she would say something like this: Pay attention to me, asshole, or you — and every generation of humans to come — will regret it.
But that’s not what Mother Nature is saying. Mother Nature (a corny but, somehow, still useful phrase that goes back to the Greeks) doesn’t say things directly. She doesn’t give a shit about Trump, or his re-election, or about you or me, or the coastline of Louisiana, or the majestic coast redwoods in California. She operates with the cold, careless laws of physics and chemistry. In the vast space of time, our magnificent Earth is a random collection of molecules, a mote of dust flying in the 150 mph winds of Hurricane Laura.
Figure 5. Holly Beach, Louisiana on November 16, 2005, after strong waves and storm surge currents from Hurricane Rita completely destroyed all 500 structures in the town and stripped away most of the vegetation, leaving deep scour channels parallel to the shoreline.
Despite what Mike Pence says, there are no miracles in America, or anywhere else. We humans are on our own. If we fuck this up, it’s on us.
In the face of a global resurgence of authoritarian far-right governments, policies and even social 
The Free 